


Dark Alliance

by ShawnMorgan



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:48:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9698582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShawnMorgan/pseuds/ShawnMorgan
Summary: They hate each other. They hate the Daleks far far more.





	1. Danger

It was a warm sunny day in Lisbon, on a veranda overlooking the Rio Tejo, where Missy sat. Laid out on the table in front of her was a strange but delightfully sweet Portuguese dessert, and a small cup of tea. She sipped her tea absentmindedly, even as she tried to think of something interesting to do.

The Doctor was nowhere to be seen (which to be honest made for a nice change of pace), and trolling UNIT was becoming predictable. Torchwood had been mostly shut down too, not worth her attention in this time period, anyway. She drummed her fingers on the table, to a new beat these days, making her decision.

Clicking her fingers, she got the waiter to come over to take her payment. Missy gave him a charming smile and produced a credit card with UNIT’s logo on it. 

“How much is it then, dear?” 

The waiter frowned. For a second or two there, it had seemed to him that she had spoken in a different language, but he put it down to her strange attire, assuming that she was a British Expatriate with an accent.

He smiled back at her, taking her payment, collecting the crockery and returning to his stand. He glanced over his shoulder, blinking when all he saw was a deserted table. The woman wasn’t anywhere in sight, but there was no way she could have disappeared that fast.

Tiago shrugged it off, his job done. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t met Brits before. At least this one had paid before vanishing.

* * *

Captain Jack Harkness looked back at his crashed ship. His team had fought valiantly but against these bastards, it had always been simply a matter of time. But they’d made the Daleks pay dearly. 

Jack took a last look at his allies’ bodies, and said, “Rest in peace. We took the bastards with us. All of them.” 

Jack placed the last charge.

There was no way in any hell was he leaving anything of his crew for the Daleks. The valiant warriors had earned a funeral pyre. Then he turned, and retrieving the heavy blaster he’d been holding in the battle walked away, looking for more Daleks to kill.

* * *

Missy materialised, casually noting that the contours of this building were the same from corridor to corridor. It confirmed that her teleport had been on target, causing a predatory smile to cross her lips.

It didn’t matter whether these were Lumasian, Mondassian or Cyberiad iteration; Cybermen were Cybermen. That meant she knew their strengths and weaknesses well. She ran through the best known of them and waited for the surveillance systems to adapt to her arrival. In less than a minute the alarms began, her only warning, a pulse detector she’d installed within her laser screwdriver. 

She glanced at it and nodded. It was time for phase two.


	2. Arrival

Missy strode down a corridor that was nearly indistinguishable from the others. The operative word there being ‘nearly’. Had she not been a Time Lord, she would have been unable to sense the temporal breadcrumbs she had left behind. What she was doing may have seemed random to any observers, but she was moving swiftly towards her go

The variables dwindled as the fifteenth cyber legion responded to her incursion in force, adapting to her presence. There was a whirring sound as she sensed the systems behind her shutting down. She was just ahead of the override when the lights and system access points ahead of her flickered and went out. 

“Here we go,” she murmured smugly as it happened,

A low voice rumbled through the air. “All egress points now neutralised, converge and terminate intruder.” 

All escape routes were gone now, and it meant that they were closing in on her. She strolled up to the nearest access panel, and leaned on the wall right next to it.

Missy found what she had expected to, as calculating at inhuman speeds, she broke through the cyber defenses, muttering amateurs as she did so. Had anyone been with her they would have been hard pressed to hear her speak, due to the sound of Stomping footsteps advancing in unison.

Flipping her laser screwdriver back into her pocket as she finished her task , she paused only for a fraction of a second to straighten her hat. She then fired a small burst into the power grid, setting her her invasive program into motion. The chances that she had spent a few hours calculating to ensure her scheme’s success, rose.

The odds were ninety seven point two percent and that caused Missy to raise an eyebrow. She was sure that she’d accounted for all possibilities. Still, she was The Mistress, and that was enough for her. 

Her silver stalkers rounded the corner then weapons primed, causing Missy to smile. Had it been a Cyber leader or a Cyber controller, it may have had enough autonomy to recognise Missy for the threat she posed. 

“So,” she began disdainfully, “I take it you’re not here to surrender? Maybe a little sore about the Nethersphere perhaps?”

“You are-”

“Omega.” As Missy uttered that one word, her trap flared into life, the energy building up as her earlier sabotage now coruscated around the blockages. It found new routes, arcing across her would be executors, blossoming into a crackling orange sphere.

As the Cybermen clattered to the ground around her, Missy smiled smugly, and prodded the nearest prone form with her foot. “You should have known better, she said quietly triumphant, “The Doctor would have tried to be merciful, even to you. I don't share his weakness.” She straightened her hat, checking the petit grounding mechanism she’d installed

She glanced at the now inert forms and and knelt to investigate, moving swiftly as she knew that the legion would have been instantly aware of the casualties. They’d already be responding. Still, she only needed a few components from each body and she would have what she needed.  
She was rising with her new gadget assembled when the cyber leader itself arrived with its detachment. It stared at her impassively even as Missy smiled sweetly at it, standing as she was, in the middle of her victims. 

The cyber leader glanced down at its fallen comrades and gave the order... " Lower weapons. Initiate teleport sequence." As one, the silver soldiers obeyed. 

Missy frowned, this was something she had accounted for. It seemed that the remaining three point two percent of her plan going awry had arrived. Her fingers danced over her own gadget as she realised this, installing a new firewall on the go. As the cyberman activated its teleport paradigm, time seemed to slow to a crawl for missy. Her hand practically blurred as she inputted new command codes, allowing her to match the synchronised assault.

Normally, even a Time Lord would be hard pressed to equal the synchronised assault of a legion of Cybermen, They would be too aware of the pitfalls and shortcomings of their plan. But like the Doctor before her, normal did not apply to Missy. 

“

 

* * *

As she rematerialised, she took a deep breath as she whipped up her laser screwdriver, now poised to kill once more, But what she saw made her snarl. The barren rocky landscape, the metallic taint in the still air, and the arrogant, genocidal, creature in front of her, its single eye stalk regarding her coldly. She knew exactly where she was now.

There in front of her was one of the single most obscene creatures in the universe, hated from Gallifrey to Earth, to Draconia and beyond. Simply being near it made her feel sick to the core of her being. 

There was no point in her running this time, this single sentry would simply cut her down as she fled, its gun aimed and ready. She stared straight at it, her eyes glinting, possessing a mere hint of the hatred and revulsion she felt.

“Well? You know who am, and what I am, and you know that given a single minute I could destroy you. So get on with it Dalek, and see how true a Time Lord dies. But know this, I will never fear you!"

“You-are-the-Master-” the Dalek began in its sinister metallic tone.

"Mistress," said Missy, interrupting it with cold disdain.

It continued. "You are an ene-my of the Da-leks. You will be Ex-term-in-ated" Exterminate! Exterminate, EX-TER-MI-"

The Dalek was cut off in the middle of its exultation as a blinding beam of destructive energy annihilated its top half. When it dissipated, all that was left of it was a smouldering casing with the organic remnants oozing over the side.

Missy narrowed her eyes, allowing them to refocus where a human would have been temporarily blinded. They narrowed further when she saw who her rescuer was.

He stood there in his trademark trench coat, his mouth fixed in a feral snarl aimed at the Dalek: Captain Jack Harkness. He held a blaster of his own time with both hands. He took a deep breath and blinked. It was obvious to Missy that the man had thought himself alone.

“Are you alri-” he paused, something making him look at her again. He looked down at his weapon’s scanner. He blinked as the device confirmed a binary heartbeat in front of him. 

Missy smiled in a patronising manner, but that was enough for a man who had been repeatedly murdered by her in a now non existent year, to make the connection

"You," he said, shifting the aim of his gun so it now targeted her.

"Me," Missy admitted, but instead of cutting Jack down, flipped her laser screwdriver, which Jack eyed suspiciously upon recognition, back into her top pocket. “But this time captain, it appears that we're on the same side." 

She glanced around, her disgust and hatred almost overwhelming to fifty first century human senses. Although this time Jack noted, it was mostly aimed elsewhere. Then with an ironic smile, she extended her right hand, empty, and Jack looked at it. Then slowly, he took it in his own and shook it warily. 

Missy smiled at a man she considered an abomination and wished her every bit as dead as the Dalek, as she returned the shake.

Humourlessly she said, "Welcome to Skaro."


	3. Vectors

Missy retracted her hand, wincing ever so slightly at having had physical contact with someone, some thing, like Jack Harkness, giving him a curt nod even as he as shouldered his heavy blaster. Glancing around, he squinted, searching for incoming foes, before looking warily at his equally reluctant ally.

Missy didn’t need to ask what was going through Jack’s mind about their situation. It was patently obvious to both of them that the term ‘enemy mine’ was in use and that one wrong move or misunderstanding could collapse their alliance like someone blowing on a house of cards

Jack broke the silence, moving their thoughts to more immediate concerns. “We need to find cover as soon as possible.” He scowled at the lack of any such concealment in the immediate area and was about to say something else. 

He was stopped in his tracks when Missy pointed and declared simply, “That way then.” Before Jack could query it, she added, “I’m taking us to the caves of Zesgan. They were used as a refuge by the few remaining Thal civilians, towards the end of the Kaled/Thal war, a war which became required reading for the Time Lords during the Time War.”

Jack gave her a pointed look. “So, this isn’t knowledge gained from your previous attempts at teaming up with these homicidal bastards then.” He smiled without much humour. 

The renegade Time Lord’s multiple attempts at manipulating the Daleks to conquer the universe for her, were extremely well documented by Terran organisations across time. The worst of it was that as the Gallifreyans had become increasingly desperate, the line between Missy and the Doctor, and standard Time Lord had narrowed rapidly.

“Not this time,” was all Missy said, her expression serious. She strode towards her new destination, occasionally looking around her.

The expression on her face was familiar to Jack. He’d seen a very similar expression on the Doctor’s face: Loathing. It disturbed him to be reminded of just how similar the two Time Lords really were. He’d read the redacted file of ‘The Time Lord Victorious’.

The memory of that friendly leather jacket wearing man he had first encountered came to him, the smile, the charm, the compassion. This was swiftly followed by memory of his claim that, “and then, just to finish off, I’m going to wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky.” 

And he’d made them panic. Against this Weaponless, defenceless, improvising man, the Daleks had panicked.

The next recollection was of the last attempted Dalek invasion of Earth, where the Doctor’s more human double had lacked the original’s inhibition. He had attempted the complete genocide of the Daleks. He had gone a long way towards succeeding too.

“Is there something wrong Captain? I need to know…” Missy’s voice broke him from his reverie and he saw that she was giving him that strange blue stare.

“Actually, I think something is going right, right now. I’ve seen you and the Doctor react to Daleka, and it’s vicious.”

“Well, I’d say that’s a good time to discuss rule number one then.” Missy looked at Jack.

“I’m listening.”

“We kill Daleks and not each other,” Missy said.

“We leave the planet together is number two,” Jack said.

“We disregard anything else if we get a chance to permanently annihilate them. -Ah, here we.”

As Missy clambered into the cave and made her way further down, Jack ground his teeth, forcing himself to suppress every instinct he had that was telling him to fire. “ Once we’re off planet,” he said to himself through clenched teeth.

 

* * *

The human prisoners cowered together, quivering with fear. They had been stolen from colony planets and herded like cattle into these dank quarters. Looking around them they saw the remnants of the dead strewn around.

Then some of their captors glided into view and the one at the front of the trio spoke. As it do so, some cried, a few men and women screamed, and children soiled themselves. The Daleks remained impassive. 

“Compatible-human-descendants-have-been-identified. Parental-human-units-have-been-deemed superfluous. Exterminate!” 

The Dalek weapon flared twice and seven year old Naomi Summers felt her parents let go of her hands. She looked confused as each of them were lit up and fell to the ground, to move no more. She was only the first victim of the pitiless onslaught.

Davros watched on, from his command centre, approving as his creations inserted probes into their remaining living prisoners, silently, and without hesitation. As one of the girls sprinted away in a desperate attempt to flee, she was cut down in flash of azure, an almost nonchalant shot.

“Daleks,” Davros intoned, “ Be less wasteful. It would have sufficed to stun her.”

“Nor-did-we-need-her-alive.”

“Do not take that tone with me! I am your creator, lord and master of the Dalek race. I WILL be obeyed!

“You-have-been-replaced-by-us-before.”

“And every time, Dalek, I have come back. Every time I have been betrayed, my betrayers have been the ones who have suffered.” He gestured with a metal covered finger at the errant Dalek. “From the dawn of your very race to the betrayal of Dalek Caan. I escaped the time War itself. You Will heed my words.”

He pointed at the view screen, “Daleks, the one in your midst? If it does not return to its task immediately, exterminate it.”

“We O-bey!” Dalek guns swiveled to point at their companion and as it turned defiantly towards them, they fired upon it, first firing at its weapons array, then at its head. It glowed and then faded from existence. 

Davros gurgled maliciously, satisfied with his result. “Good, now commence nanite activation. They will spend the next twelve years, overwriting the human DNA. Then we will have disposable agents, that will plunge Earth into chaos again. This time we will take our time, and when we finally reveal ourselves, it will be too late!” 

“We-hear-and obey! ” With that last exultation, the Daleks turned to their prisoners, none of them older than Naomi Summers, and they began operating.

 

* * *

Missy and Jack made their way deeper into the cave, neither needing much rest compared to the average human, their own endurance far superior. Missy was Galifreyan and even before being endowed with Time Lord abilities, she was stronger and tougher. For his part, Jack had benefited from three thousand years of human evolution and a deeper understanding of the sciences.

He broke the silence. “Okay Missy, lead the way. Find us a Dalek nerve centre to blow to kingdom come.” When she didn’t answer him after a good few seconds he asked, “ What’s got to you? ”

By way of answer, she pointed at what they had arrived at. There were pods filled with prisoners of varying races, though the majority were human. Tubes flowed into the pods and into the prisoners. 

Missy ran her hand over one of the units, her face soft, almost compassionate. “Captain, can you see any adults here?”

Jack looked around, quickly seeing where Missy was going with this. “ Hell… those Bastards.”

He hefted his blaster into position and took aim, his face dark with impotent rage. He searched for some kind of release mechanism, his mind racing. There were tubes crisscrossing the chamber and connecting every child to a central unit. After several seconds a hand came to rest on his shoulder and jack looked, surprised, at Missy who he could see was in discomfort.

"Captain, we will be found soon, so whatever it is you're planning,be swift."

Maybe he could have saved them. But he had no way off planet for them and it was extremely unlikely that he could prevent their recapture. Looking at Missy he whispered, "I'll catch up."

Missy looked at him with a strange expression. “

Jack spoke quietly. “It’s the only thing we can do for them. And do you think any of the girls would want to grow up to be Dalek breeding stock?”

“No, captain, I truly don’t." Missy had a far away look in her eyes as she spoke. "But give me a minute to try and muffle the sound. I already sabotaged their security system on the way in, although it won't last forever.”

Jack blinked. “So that’s why we haven’t already been swarmed by the bastards.”

“And now I know what those cyber bastards were doing.” She told the captain of her previous engagement, at the end adding, “It doesn’t seem so strange now does it captain, that I landed close to this.”

Jack smiled grimly. “Whereas I just ended up real unlucky.”

 

* * *

Things were worse than the duo realised. The Cyber plot had been ambitious. They had attempted to send Missy straight to Davros and they had come close, within a mile of their target.

That had been enough for Davros to notice them but amused by their belief that they were unobserved had allowed them temporary freedom in order to study them. He rested his chin on steepled hands his chin on his hands as he watched the pair of intruders intently. There was something different, something inhuman about both of them. It seemed oddly familiar.

His reverie was interrupted by a shot fired by the man in the trench coat that annihilated the life support of the human children in the pods.

“We’re monsters,” he heard the man say.

“We’re weapons, both of us.” This was the woman.

The Supreme Dalek blared its orders. “Exterminate them!”

“No,” Davros countered, finally identifying the niggly sense of familiarity placing the “They are of scientific interest to me. Find them if necessary, subdue them, but bring them to me alive.” 

“They are enemies of the Daleks. They should be exterminated.”

“Oh? You believe your intelligence is greater than mine? Think again. Scan them and realise what you have missed, that I have spotted.”

There was silence as the Supreme Dalek obeyed. Then it boomed out a new order. “Bring the Time Lord to Davros!"


	4. Revealed

The cyber leader downloaded its most recent data after scanning its fallen comrades. The data retrieval was paramount, even if there had been any viable means of rebooting its fallen subordinates. It took it macro-seconds for the cyber leader to complete its task. Upgrading its knowledge as it did.

After a soft reboot, accompanied by a system scan, the leader silently ran through the new data, knowing its followers were now doing the same. These Cybermen were neither Mondassian or alternative Earth, but an eclectic mix. They had no weakness to gold, and their working knowledge of humanity informed them that the organic race would be uncooperative at best, even faced with overwhelming numbers.

But, with this earth rapidly catching up with Cyber technology, there were now multiple viable plans of action. The first was was to upgrade their defensives. Thanks to their recent visitor, they had finally arrived at a truly Dalek resistant paradigm. Alongside that, the opportunity to send even a single Time Lord against Daleks wasn’t one to squander

Internal systems, check, reboot complete, code upgraded. Upgrading is compulsory. Tactical analysis: London, home of UNIT and the Black Archive. Cyber assault on the Black Archive will fail. Secondary analysis, UNIT will commit all forces to the Black Archive’s defense, leaving other deployments stretched thin.

Query. Cardiff. Answer. UNIT forces in Cardiff would be redeployed to London under emergency protocols. Token task force will remain. Secondary forces available to organised defenses include Silurians of the Cambrian region. Revising estimate of defense forces. Silurian reinforcements now predicted to arrive within forty three minutes of the Cardiff assault. 

Probability of upgrading London - Thirty Three point two-nine-one-three percent.

Probability of annexing Cardiff - Forty Eight point four-eight-four-eight recurring.

“Deploy task force one to London. Deploy task force two to Manchester. Deploy task force three to Birmingham. Deploy task force four to Liverpool. Deploy Task force five to Bangor, North Wales. Deploy task force six to Cardiff Bay.”

 

* * *

Jack and Missy walked away from the victims in the cave, neither looking back., 

“Captain?”

“What?” Jack’s voice was strained and it was patently obvious that he was in no mood for talking. 

“I do need you to explain why you called me Missy. How do you know my title

“Oh, that. It’s just short for Mistress. I figured you’d use something related to being in charge. Your ego wouldn’t ever let you give it up. Anything else, or can we get on with the important stuff?”

Missy shook her head. “Nothing at this point. We’re proceeding steadily now.”

As she spoke the air shimmered ahead of her and a familiar hostile form glided menacingly forward. “You-will-proceed-no-further-or-you-will-be-exterminated. 0You-are-now-prisoners-of-the-Daleks!”

“You-are-our-prisoners!”

Missy froze, a sneer forming on her lips. “We’re your prisoners. That’s worked out oh so well for you in the time stream hasn’t it?”

Jack gave Missy a sour look.. “Do you really have to go an antagonise the homicidal salt shakers?” 

“Yes, they’re Daleks. And if they were allowed to kill us, they would have done so already, especially considering who and what I am. We were expected captain. I imagine he has been watching us since we arrived or close enough to that point to make infinitesimal difference. “

 

“Yes, confirmed. Then she smiled at the lead Dalek and did a little dance. When it didn’t fire, she continued, her smile vanishing. “All the places on this planet and we end up in one of his experimental camps.”

“His who?” asked Jack.

The only man in the galaxy who has ever been able to exert authority over the Dalek race. Notice how they’re letting me, a Time Lord, speak. When there are three of them and two of us, and they have your blaster jammed?”

“Yeah, I’d kinda wondered about that.” Jack dropped the blaster rifle, now that it was simply a dead weight. There was the briefest of pauses and a Dalek obliterated the rifle." Jack shrugged, Well there goes our only weapon.”

MIssy looked straight into Jack’s eyes and said at the same time as Jack who caught up fast, “Davros.”

 

* * *

The Cybermen simply arrived across England and Wales en masse and began their advance. Canary Wharf, the former home of Torchwood One, fell swiftly, the building rendered a blazing wreck within under half an hour. The BBC was also invaded, the Cybermen interrupting the Six 0’Clock news to spread panic as rapidly and widely as possible.

 

Manchester suffered greatly as the city’s infrastructure was used to fullest advantage by the invaders. The chaos, courtesy of the Cybermen just kept coming.

Osgood inhaled a deep breath as she watched the reports rush in, form Liverpool to Bangor, Manchester to London, although the pounding her base was taking had already told her what she needed to know where London was concerned.

Her colleagues continued to rattle of status updates. 

“Manchester city hall has fallen, 

“Liverpool docks under cyber control.”

“Bangor railway station and Menai Bridge compromised.”

“The M four to South Wales is under attack. Ma'am, we lose that and we lose our main entrance to South Wales.

“The Severn Bridge?” Osgood had a sinking feeling that she already knew the answer.

“Already destroyed ma'amm. As is Bristol Temple Meads Railway station.”  
“Redeploy all available units to the defense of London.

“Mam, the other cities-”

“Are on their own. If the Tower falls, Earth falls.”

“With respect maa'm, Cardiff?”

“No, we can’t be sure we got everything from the Cardiff Bay area, the local population had a penchant for acquiring technology in the wake of Torchwood operations. Plus, we have reserves there that may turn it back as long as we leave it fully defended. Simon?”

“Osgood?”

“Light the beacons.”

“Codeword?”

“Zygon One.”

Even as the call went out, the tower shook under yet another ferocious barrage.

How much longer could they endure?

 

* * *

A Cyberman’s head exploded as a UNIT rocket launcher too its head off and another was wreathed in flame as soeom sturdier than most civilians fired an unknown device. The Cyberman staggered and fell, intoning “Uploading” as it did so. 

Behind it, its allies said “Upgrading.” The device was fired again, this time washing harmlessly off the target.

More than three hundred Cybermen advanced on Cardiff Bay itself.

“I want a ring of steel around the hub area, you know where I mean!”

“Sir, all other targeted areas except London have fallen. Best predictions here are another fifteen minutes even at full strength!”

The captain in charge swallowed, on the verge of giving the evacuation order, when the ground shook under the tramping of heavy feet.

“Zygons sir! And armed to the teeth.”

At this news, the captain’s frown was replaced by a feral smile. “All ordnance authorised. Fire Sontaran weaponry and fire at Will!”

“ALL UNITS! OPEN FIRE!”

*

 

High above the Cyber leader watched on impassively even as it altered its predictions for Cardiff. It received the reports it required. They had the technology they wanted now, taken from the bottom of the bay. It was a primitive rift siphon, the idea of it to allow those near the Cardiff rift to siphon the temporal energy and direct their own travel. It knew that humans had managed rudimentary time travel in the early twentieth century but hadn't managed much more of it until the latter half. Now it knew what had impeded humanity's temporal progress

The Cyber leader compared the device to a Vortex manipulator but leading to a more advanced idea. It recorded the schematic it was sent and then forwarded it to every Cyberman outpost within range.

It wasn’t perfect but it was adequate and with this, they could now fight the Daleks more effectively. It sent the recall notice. The Cyber leader gave the order.

“All troops, prepare for imminent assault on Skaro. Conversion of Davros is now priority one. Casualties are not a concern. redeploy."

 

* * *

Missy smiled her in a predatory fashion as she was brought before Davros. The evil genius was flanked by two of his creations. Others kept their weapons trained on her. Jack was surrounded by Daleks, prevented from reaching Davros and cut off from his only ally on this benighted world.

Davros stared intently at both his captives, chuckling with gleeful malice. Looking at Mossy he spoke calmly. “I remember you now, you were here once before, with him.  
Jack Harkness furrowed his brow at that but then the penny dropped and he realised Davros meant a different him, and by extension realised that could only mean one man. He had to smile. He coughed to get Missy and Davro’s attention. Both of them looked at him.

“Why are we still alive? You obviously want something.”

“Ah, it speaks.”

“Captain Jack Harkness and we’ve met before too. Remember the crucible pal?”

Davros took a moment to recall, but then gurgled again. “So, the bearer of the Lazarus Effect is in my grasp, and does not realise why he would be wanted? Imagine captain, imagine how you are surrounded and what your gift would mean for the Dalek race. With your gift, we will be unstoppable!” 

The only word Jack could utter at that concept was ‘no’.

Davros continued. “With your life force and her intellect combined, we will surge across the stars themselves!”

Jack snarled. “We’ll stop you. I don’t know how and I don’t know who, but someone somewhere will stop you.”

Missy smiled. “Whatever it takes, everyone else will stop you.”

“Enough of this, I know what I need now i have seen them for myself. Surgical team, take them and reassemble them as one unit. Keep the time lord alive during it, make her suffer, explore the upper limits of Time Lord endurance and map the regeneration paradigm if you can.”

They were trapped, weaponless, save a laser screwdriver that was useless in this situation. All hope was lost.

And that was when every alarm in the region blared into life, heralding the arrival of twenty million upgraded Cybermen,


	5. Onslaught

Osgood blinked. One minute, the United Kingdom had been buckling under a sustained and highly targeted attack, the next there was a truly miniscule Cyber presence. She leaned over the closest monitor she could, flicking her gaze from camera to camera. There was no doubt about it. The Cybermen had simply vanished

“Simon, whatever this is, whatever miracle just save us, we still need to regroup. Send out a complete recall. And expect Kate to check in at any moment now we have communications back.”

Osgood watched as the Tower’s personnel finally believed that the attack was over, and began returning to their normal stations. Some were reassigned to repair details for a little while before she turned to her subordinated and said, “Let’s just hope they’ve gone after someone else we don;t like. Now, send out our thanks to the Zygons and quietly, the Silurians.”

“I never noticed the Silurians ma’am.” Simon’s voice had a slightly questioning tone to it.

Osgood allowed herself a moment of self congratulation, patting Simon amicably on his shoulder “That was the point.”

 

* * *

 

The command bunker doors slid shut without a sound and a faint blue shimmer informed Jack and Missy that shields had been raised.

“How long will those shields last?” Jack asked.

Missy shrugged. “Against Cybermen, I simply don’t know. Against a War Tardis, far too long.”  
Jack blinked. He had never heard the term ‘War Tardis’ before. A cold chill ran down his spine. He was in the headquarters of a man who was far more evil and even more dangerous than his erstwhile ally. What was more, the two were studying each other. 

Davros nodded, “My wonderful creation, captain. Capable of assailing Gallifrey itself, surviving confrontations with the Doctor himself where other lesser races would be obliterated. Indeed, the amount of casualties my children have already inflicted on the Cybermen is staggering: Tens of thousands, within minutes.”

The screen showed the Cybermen marching towards the bunker, often glowing blue as Dalek weaponry cut them down. Davros’ gloating halted though when after several waves of Cybermen had fallen, he saw their own forms glow blue, but about a quarter of them staggered forwards.

“Upgrading.” Just this one word was uttered and the faltering units rose again, with the Dalek weapons now finding it far more difficult to penetrate their enemy’s defenses.

“Davros located. Conversion is compulsory.” Jack and Missy looked at each other, even Davros was momentarily taken aback.

“Alright people, that’s the cue for all three of us to leave we need an out. We cannot let them get their hands on Davros!”

Missy produced her laser screwdriver, aware that daleks in the room aimed all weapons her way. She twitched, her sense of survival narrowly over riding her desire to exterminate davros. “I’m forced to agree. We can’t even let them get his corpse.”

“Davros Gurgled, once again preparing to beat the odds. Once again, at a critical moment he had found a way out. It was temporary, but he would have a few minutes to think. That was all he needed. “Supreme Dalek, prepare my evacuation shuttle. Retrieve me when you have exterminated these pests. And, oh, deploy all special weapons Daleks.”

“We-obey! Squad-Seventy-five-is-encountering-heavy-cyber-resistance. Request-assistance. Request-assis-” The mechanical voice was replaced by the hiss of static.

“Squad-eighty-four-reports-increased-Cyberpower. They-are-upgrading. Maximum Extermination!”

“Match them!” with that, Davros turned and headed for his escape route. Missy stepped in front of him. “As for these two-”

“You need us, and you know it. The Cybermen will closing their circle and that includes in the shuttle bay.”” she said quickly as Daleks aimed their guns at her her. “If they get you, or they get us, you know what they have. And that’s the end of all of us. And all our races.”

For single eternal second, Skaran and Gallifreyan stared at each other before Davros clenched his teeth. “Follow me,” he said..

A panel in the bunker slid open revealing a power lift. The bunker doors began to glow red behind them as Cybermen began to burn their way through the door and Elite Daleks moved to hold position.

 

The Cyber leader ran through thousands of simultaneous reports, analysing each one a sit arrived. The casualty report was now approaching fifteen million and a third as many Daleks, though that left over a million troops encircling Davros’ base. It didn’t alter the plan.The barest fraction of under one hundred percent losses remained acceptable.

 

*

The lifted doors opened and Jack Harkness stepped in front of the two people he hated most in the universe, to protect them, as laser fire zipped past his ears.

“Daleks! Protect Davros and both allies at all costs!” A trio of Daleks turned, their guns twitching as their sensor detected Missy, yearning to annihilate the Gallifreyan 

“Obey him!” Davros snarled the order and it was enough to shock his creations into obedience. They swiftly broke from the rapidly diminishing defense perimeter which was now mostly only holding due to the number of motionless silver bodies impeding their own force’s progress.

Jack kept his own body between Davros and the Cybermen, forced to leave Missy to fend for herself considering the stakes. The shuttle door opened and Davros scurried inside, with Missy a close second, with Jack bringing up the rear.

Even as he did so, a smoking ruin of a Dalek, destroyed by heavy cyber rifles, was hurled back as a multitude of Cybermen simply focussed their fire on it. The explosion had been large enough to clear a gap in the heap of fallen Cybermen and their replacements marched forwards, swiftly regaining their momentum.

Jack entered the escape craft even as a silver hand grabbed for him. He felt the merest touch of cold metal on skin and he jerked back, seeing a Cyberman reach for him. Two bolts of crackling energy flashed pat him even as the shuttle ascended under emergency protocols, raising both cloak and shields.

The Cyberman crackled and convulsed under the combined assault of Missy and Davros, and clattered to the floor. 

Missy slipped over to the control console frowning as she saw that their ascension speed was slower than desired. The red dot of an approaching hostile increased the tension.

“Captain.”

“Yeah, I know. We’re gonna have company!”

“At least we’re out of range of their jammers for now.”

Davros squinted at the captain and then simply nodded his head. “I thank you for saving me and by extension, the Dalek Race. Farewell. Emergency temporal shift!” He pointed his finger at Missy, shooting a second beam, at her, trying to kill her as he left. It betn at an angle, illuminating her hat, the grounding mechanism still functional.

Missy responded with a desperate shot of her own laser screwdriver aimed straight at Davros, third eye. Her reaction speed was beyond normal human perception, so much so that even Jack harkness had difficulty processing it. The resulting sizzle of smoking metal let him know what had just happened.

“Are you insane? You could have just destroyed the flight console!” 

Missy turned and fixed Jack with an icy stare. “Yes captain, I am insane. But not so insane that I would willingly let the creator of the Daleks, live. What about you?”

Jack gritted his teeth. “No, I suppose not.”

“Then we’re agreed. Now, take the helm whilst I try and boost engine power. No point with the cloak, it’s already fallen and the shields are close behind it. And when we get away from this, I.will.hunt.that.bastard.down.”

“Fine.” Jack practically hissed his agreement, glancing over his shoulder, to confirm that the Cyberman was permanently. Satisfied that the threat was gone, he switched all his efforts to getting this cramped, lightly defended shuttle as far away from the Cyber battle cruiser that was closing in on them as quickly as possible. he knew that the damned ship would be upgrading as it went. 

“Captain!”

“I know. Brace yourself for terrain follow mode, Then I’m going to try for s slingshot off the damn thing’s own shields.”

The Cyber leader watched and it felt itself running small program that it dedicated some runtime to, to eradicate it. Somewhere in all this, it had felt... something. As the target craft turned in an arc far too tight for any normal human to remain conscious through, using the Cruiser itself to hurl itself into the atmosphere, the cyber leader identified the emotion: Frustration.

It made its decision then. If it had not purged all emotion, then it was not the correct iteration of Cybermen and regardless of the advances made against, there remained much to do. Whilst it made that calculation, it gave the recall order for fully three quarters of the assault force.Half of them made it back aboard the cruiser, before it too came under bombardment by a new wave of Dalek attackers, this wave far stronger than the last.

“All power to engines: Disengage Daleks. Engage temporal shift.” The Cybership flickered as it departed Skaro’s skies.

 

* * *

Captain Jack Harkness gave deep felt sigh of relief as the little shuttle accelerated away from one of the single most hated planets across the universe. Sitting nearby, Missy was giving him a curious stare. 

“Well then captain, we escaped together, nearly managed to kill the creator of the Daleks and evaded the Cybermen. But, now we have a newproblem.”

Jack smiled nastily. “Each other.“

Missy returned the smile. “Exactly. But I hope you knew I was serious earlier?”

“About what?” 

“Pursuing Davros,” she said.

He nodded. “Yeah, strange to find myself saying this, but I do believe you.”

“Our truce holds then?

“Yes, for now.”

Missy stretched out her hand and Jack shook it.


	6. Silver

And a long way into the future, the Cyberiad... waited,


End file.
